Around the world, XBee RF wireless modules are extending the reach of wireless technology. They can be found anywhere — streetlights, homes, power plants, forests — the possibilities are endless. Check out some of the real-world applications in the video below.

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Here are just a few other interesting XBee projects

Garage Siren in Mongolia

Battushig Myanganbayar is a brilliant 16 year old from Mongolia with a talent for building electronics with a purpose. His work with XBees has even been featured in the New York Times. His goal was to keep the younger children in the neighborhood safe. To do this, he has developed a wireless alarm system. Children often play along the street where cars frequently pass by while leaving or entering the garage. Whenever a car is going to or from the apartment’s garage and a child is in harm’s way, Battushig’s alarm will emit a high frequency sound and flash a bright red light. This ensures that children are still able to continue playing outside all while being safe.

Detecting Forest Fires in Spain

XBees are also used in the well-known Waspmote by Libelium. They needed both long range connections and the ability to connect wireless networks of varying frequencies. The exceptional range of XBee made it ideal for the large deployments needed to monitor forest fires, agriculture, and floods. The Waspmote can use infrared and ultraviolet sensors to detect flames as well as the release of compounds CO and CO2 that are abundant during combustion. Libelium is also able to adjust the networking protocol, so whether they need to use 802.15.4 or ZigBee, they can adjust accordingly with XBee.

Monitoring Road Conditions in Norway

A Sweden based company, Mowic, has developed a wireless network to monitor road conditions and improve driver safety. The network, called TrackIce, uses a DigiMesh network to establish long range and low powered communication between sensors. The same network will be adapted to monitor airports, ski resorts, and hydro-electric power plants. Read more about the TrackIce network here.

We were excited to see many projects that use Digi products nominated for Postscapes Internet of Things Awards. We were even more excited to see many of those projects named as winners including Kijani Grows, Eve, Libelium’s Waspmote and Connecting Light. You can check out each winner below.

Kijani Grows produces smart aquaponic systems that use sensors and microprocessors, such as the XBee, paired with the cloud and social media networks to help you grow a least a plate of organic microgreens every day.

Eve is a plug in board for the Raspberry Pi mini computer. A hub that connects your wireless devices to each other and the web. At her heart Even is a communicator (between devices), a facilitator, and a guardian (a gateway to allow you to see what is going on in your world). You can see the Kickstarter page for Eve here. The project was successfully funded in November 2012.

The solar powered Waspmote system can be deployed across a wide range of applications in urban spaces such as monitoring air quality, waste container levels, structural health and noise maps.

Connecting Light, Second Place in People’s Choice for Networked Art Project

Hundreds (400 to be exact) of six-foot in diameter weather balloons were equipped with high-powered LEDs driven by Programmable XBee radios that communicated with ConnectPort X4 cellular gateways through the iDigi Device Cloud to illuminate Britain’s greatest Roman monument, Hadrian’s Wall. Digi Professional Services also helped to design the network architecture as an Internet of Things solution. You can see a diagram of the setup of the 73-mile connected work and learn more about the technology here.

You can see the full list of winners on Postscapes and take part in the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #IoTAwards.